In general, kids like to eat healthy. They like foods like fruits, curd, milk and cereals. But unfortunately, the large amount of chocolates and chips that they see and are offered everywhere often make them crave for these foods and reject the healthy foods that you serve them.
But with a few simple tricks, you can easily feed your kids healthy food, sometimes without them even noticing:
- Hide vegetables in foods your child likes
- To make your child more attractive, serve healthy food with foods that your child likes
- Serve meals the way your child likes them
- Make desserts, sweets, and chips a bonus treat for healthy eating.
- Let your kids help prepare meals
Tip #1: Hide vegetables in your child’s favorite foods
- Finely chop the vegetables and pack them into meatloaf or meatballs. Your child won’t even know they’re there. Mushrooms and eggplant in particular can hardly be seen because they take on the same color as the flesh. You can also use this trick for your minced meat when making burgers. What kid would turn down a burger?
- If your child likes milk and curd but refuses to eat fruits, then secretly mash the fruit and add it to the curd. Tell your child that this is fruit yogurt that you bought just like that. Or make smoothies or milkshakes. Maybe add some honey to make it sweeter and tastier.
Trick #2: Pair healthy meals with foods your child likes to make them more appealing
- Serve fruit or fruit puree with ice cream.
- Pack fruit into your chocolate or vanilla cream.
- Serve a small portion of the vegetables your child doesn’t like with other vegetables and chips.
- Add a variety of vegetables to your pasta tomato sauce.
- Pour vegetable puree over pasta, or make a sauce to serve with chips or crackers.
Strong>Trick #3: Serve foods the way your child likes them
- Your child may have a general problem with the texture, not just the food.
- If your child doesn’t like tomatoes, try tomato sauce, canned tomatoes, or tomato soup.
- If he doesn’t like a particular fruit, make jelly out of it and put it on a breakfast sandwich or add it to yogurt for breakfast.
- Try eating stewed or canned fruit instead of fresh fruit. Buy fruit canned in fruit juice rather than syrup because these products do not contain added sugar.
- Make your kid’s plate interesting. For example, cut the fruit and arrange it in the form of a picture. Some butchers also sell special polony for children in the shape of funny faces or teddy bears.
Trick #4: Make desserts, sweets, and chips a bonus treat for healthy eating
- This strategy requires some determination on your part and may result in a few tantrums but should be quite effective after a while. Never give up! Eventually your child will give up.
- If your child refuses some healthy food, tell him that he will get dessert only after he finishes his lunch.
- Chips and sweets will be given only after dinner for the whole night.
- Just make sure your child’s plate isn’t overloaded. In that case you would be punishing him for not eating more which would definitely be wrong.
Trick #5: Let your kids help you prepare the food
- Kids are more inclined to eat food when they help prepare it.
- Give your child any task that he can do, such as peeling fruits, chopping vegetables, stirring food, etc. The more you involve him in the cooking process, the better.
By following these five tricks, your child will eventually be eating at least some healthy foods. Focus on one food or treat at a time, and when your baby accepts this food, move on to the next one. Your baby has developed his own eating habits over time and will gradually change them.
